


the highway to an event horizon

by nevergreen



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23670367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevergreen/pseuds/nevergreen
Summary: Two parallel roads are close to each other, but they never cross, and all the cars are shiny and nice. Beyond an event horizon the asphalt is crushed and wires are tangled and poles are swept away.
Relationships: 707 | Choi Luciel/Vanderwood
Kudos: 28





	the highway to an event horizon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lemon_demon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemon_demon/gifts).



> every day is tuesday now

“Your relationship with that V guy looks like poorly directed incestuous drama that has 4,7 on IMDB”, Vanderwood says, as he sprawled on a couch, still in his coat buttoned up. His scarf is mauve purple and hangs loosely from his shoulders, his hair is slightly wet and he looks domesticated, a civil almost. Vanderwood could trick anyone but Saeyoung; there is a knife in his sleeve, a gun on his side and a taser in his pocket.

Saeyoung knows that Vanderwood barely needs any of these.

“Do you have a chill pill hidden somewhere?” Saeyoung asks, eyeing him with a faint glimpse of curiosity, before turning back to the screen. “A tooth? A collar? A glove, maybe?”

“Are you stupid? I’m not that important”, Vanderwood scoffs and stands up, then stretches and yawns – for some reason he’s more at ease in Saeyoung’s house than Saeyoung itself. Then he comes closer - his steps are always too quiet to hear, but he never approaches from the back. Saeyoung appreciates the gesture.

“Take off your coat, it smells like cigarettes in here”, Saeyoung muffles.

“Look who’s talking. When was the last time you lifted your ass from this chair? You didn’t even greet me when I got in, and you need a bath”.

It’s their way of co-existing and their twisted symbiosis. It’s the pattern stitched in them long before this house, the obnoxious red couch that smells like soda, before orange headphones and piles of crumbs under Saeyoung’s desk. It’s there since lanky legs, shaking, covered in blood, kneecaps marred with cuts and wounds. It’s there since C-4 blocks, hugging him tightly, and their almond smell, and the hands, fast and dextrous, untying him, moving in sync with the curses flowing seamlessly, and brown eyes, narrowed and terrified.

“It’s you and your superiority complex, making you think they will all die without your help”, Vanderwood says off-hand, and looks over Saeyoung’s shoulder on the screen. There is video feed from some surveillance cameras, grainy and blurry, showing an unlit corridor with no signs of life whatsoever. “Is that your bomb girl? What’s her name again?”

“Curiosity killed the cat, Miss Vanderwood”.

“But satisfaction brought it back”, he counters, somehow knowing that Saeyoung won’t bite back this time. He looks too worn today, too washed up and Vanderwoond doesn’t fancy him like that. This Saeyoung brings him the slight but persistent uneasiness, and Vanderwood would rather take a word with that bastard V than watch how Saeyoung oscillates between being caffeinated to death and being dead for real. His red hair is like a splash a blood right next to Vanderwood’s face, and the thought that he’s already dead is like a tiny flicker, a small spark flashing with a brief, familiar terror and dying inside his skull the next second.

It’s in the nature of what they are doing, it’s the point of no return, it’s the most natural way to exist – thinking that their time is borrowed, and being careful, they can borrow more. Nevertheless, Vanderwood discovered long ago that Saeyoung’s bullet-ridden head fancies him even less than his half-assed appearance.

Saeyoung glances at him briefly, as if he knows what Vanderwood thinks about, and takes a half-finished can of Ph.D Pepper. It smells like sugar and insomnia. Vanderwood inhales sharply, and a slight hint of almonds makes him twitch. He hates this smell with a burning passion.

“It’s either you stand up and take your ass to the bathroom or I’ll escort you with a gun to your head”, Vanderwood offers and runs through the buttons. “Your fucking crumbs are on my coat already”.

“I told you to take it off”, Saeyoung echoes wearily, and his tone eats away the remnants or Vanderwood’s patience.

“Another word, and I promise I’ll make you a sickest bubble bath and throw in both you and my taser”, he snaps. “It’s disgusting in here, I need you out of that godforsaken hole that you call your room right now, got it? Don’t go back unless you smell like a fucking peach farm. That V bastard and his girl won’t die in half an hour, I’ll keep an eye on it. Now begone, you stinky dumpshit”.

Saeyoung’s lips curve slightly, and then his face softens, a quirky thin lip line eases a bit. “Will you clean for me a little?”

“I will clean you off the face of the Earth in the next minute, if you’re still here”.

“Right-o, Miss”, Saeyoung stands up and smiles, and it’s bright, and wide, and still a half-assed one, but it’s better than nothing. “You’re the best maid I’ve ever had”.

He crosses the room, and after the door closes behind his back, Vanderwood catches on it and shouts back:

“You’ve never had any!”, but there’s no Saeyoung anymore, only the army of cans and a chair, still turned slightly.

“And I’m not your fucking maid”, Vanderwood mutters, turns the chair back so that it faces the screen straightly, and leans forward to take some cans from the floor. Saeyoung never crumples them, he never touches them at all after they are finished, and they just stand there, a shiny cherry-coloured army that rolls away from the slightest kick.

There should be a freaking vacuum cleaner somewhere in this goddamn house. Of course, Vanderwood would _never_ , but the mere thought that there’s nothing like that makes him shiver. What a haywire ragged piece of mess is this kid.

Saeyoung is back after ten minutes, in a thin red jumper shuffled on the wet skin, with the hair soaking wet sticking to his forehead and temples. He stands in the door frame and watches Vanderwood sweeping the floor clean; his coat is on the coach and the scarf is folded on the chair.

“When will you start paying me?”, Vanderwood narrows his eyes on him, then looks down, where Saeyoung’s bare feet left wet marks on the clean tiling. “Look, I know that all you geniuses are slightly out of whack but don’t you _know_ how to use a freaking towel?”

“I smell good”, Saeyoung responds, a crooked smile on his pale face, a drop of water rolling down his cheek. “Now the only difference between you and me is that I never killed anybody”.

“Directly”, Vanderwood corrects him. “And I dress better than you”.

Saeyoung shrugs, then takes Vanderwood’s scarf, wraps in it and regains his chair back. “Did anything happen?”, asks he, clearly about his scumbag that orders him around and his girl inside the unmemorable studio apartment, but Vanderwood looks at the way mauve purple fuses with the back of Saeyoung's neck and answers with his “ _nothing_ ” with a delay so brief it’s easy to miss.

Saeyoung never missed anything before.

He takes Vanderwood’s scarf off his shoulders – now the scarf is slightly wet too – and hands it back with an unapologetic “sorry”. The scarf smells like cheap soap and cigarettes, and Vanderwood throws it over Saeyoung’s damp hair, enjoying the surprised muffled pant that comes after. “I need to smoke”, he announces loudly, and heads to the door brushing away the sudden feeling in his gut. It comes sharply and heavily, and all these punches he feels under his ribs are bubbles, and every bubble bursts with a sting.

The door gives him the word “ _peaches_ ”, and Vanderwood kicks it with his high boot and laughs.


End file.
